Tag: Christ
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Winter Light
My January column from the Christian Courier. ____________________ As this column appears in your mailbox we are in the season of Epiphany—in the midst of the church’s celebration of light and the one who is the light of the world. The texts that echo in our ears and minds are those that invite: “Arise, shine,…
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Telling the truth about our lives #Bach #Zagajewski
My latest column in the Christian Courier. ______________________ Some years ago, I was introduced to a remarkable piece of music composed by JS Bach—the fifth movement of his Partita in D minor for solo violin (called the Chaconne). As with so many of Bach’s works, the Chaconne easily captures your heart; it has a way…
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A Christmas Prayer
My latest column in the Christian Courier is a prayer for Christmas. __________________ Praise to you, O living Word, for you give the gift of our world. You are the creating one through whom ancient Laurentian mountains have their craggy existence. By your imaginative power, forests of black spruce, larch, and balsam grow along ridges…
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Rocks, boulders, pebbles, alive?
Stones of all kinds were a feature of my family’s vacation this past month – a vacation that included two weeks on the West Coast. We spent time in and around Vancouver, and then up the coast into Alaska. Everywhere there were stones. With the tide out, wandering on rocky beaches – more stones than…
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Fashioning our Self
My latest in the Christian Courier, here. _____________ A good number of Canadians are sporting new outfits these January days. We are wearing our Christmas gifts – or, perhaps more likely, we are newly-attired from our own post-Christmas bargain shopping. There are a good many of us who got into a new pair of jeans…
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what we wear – who we are
Clothing has always been a significant part of human identity. Historically human clothing has been particularly significant in terms of our shared or our collective identities. In particular cultures there was always a similarity of dress; our clothing marked us out as belonging to a particular culture or community. So there has been a style…
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poem for palm sunday
PALM SUNDAY hymn Time-pressed sedimentary, igneous, metamorphic rocks Burst with anticipation that, human voices stayed, Their moment of unlocked eloquence and Soaring speech might finally arrive. But vocal chords reverberate with ancient choruses, Embodying praise for earth divinely imagined, given, Gathering sentiments of quartz, kingfisher and crocodile: Hosanna! King! Saviour! recoil Impossible words,…
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are you bored yet?
This piece was recently on exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, as part of the exhibit “From Van Gogh to Kandinsky.” I was struck by how thoroughly modern and contemporary this image feels – it could have been painted yesterday, but was in fact created in 1910 by Ernest Ludwig Kirchner. The curator…
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Congregational Aesthetics – beyONd our walls (3/3)
In this short blog series I’ve been exploring this question: What is the aesthetic profile of your congregation. Otherwise put: What do the artwork and architecture and liturgical accoutrements of your congregation reveal about its faith and identity? And how do they shape your faith and discipleship? In my first post I explored how we might respond to…
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Losing Self? — Faith, Memory, Identity
We’ve all had that feeling of disorientation at some point. Perhaps you are staying in a hotel somewhere, or visiting family for a few days. You wake up in the middle of the night and don’t know where you are. The room is unfamiliar. You feel lost. You look for points of familiarity to locate…
encrusted words 